Bears offense determined to bounce back

Saying the Bears offense is eager for an opportunity to rebound from last Thursday night's debacle in Green Bay may be the understatement of the century.

Saying the Bears offense is eager for an opportunity to rebound from last Thursday night's debacle in Green Bay may be the understatement of the century.

Brandon Marshall was limited to two receptions for 24 yards in Green Bay after catching nine passes for 119 yards and one touchdown versus the Colts.

The unit was limited to 168 total yards and 11 first downs while committing four turnovers and yielding seven sacks in a frustrating 23-10 loss to the Packers.

"You want to get right back on the field," offensive coordinator Mike Tice said in advance of Sunday's home game against the St. Louis Rams.

"You wish you had a doubleheader. But we don't, so we're going to spend our time trying to correct things and get moving back in the right direction. We obviously took a step backwards and now we want to move in the right direction. We want to go forward."

Even after the offense struggled across the board in Green Bay, quarterback Jay Cutler is confident in the unit and isn't ready to hit the panic button.

"You want this to happen earlier in the season rather than late," Cutler said. "You want this to be a hurdle that you cross early in the year when it's not as detrimental to your team and you can fix it early, move on and grow together.

"This offense is still young. There are still a lot of moving parts that are learning and trying to figure out each other and the relationships and how to communicate within the week and during the game. The sky is not falling quite yet."

Cutler views the poor performance as a learning experience that will ultimately benefit the Bears.

"You can't stick the blame on one person. It takes a group effort," he said. "A lot of it is going to fall on me, as it should, and a lot of it is going to fall on Mike Tice because he is the offensive coordinator and he is in charge of this offense.

"We all learned stuff and you learn stuff even when you win. It's a long season. It's 16 games and if you're not learning and you're not growing, you're not going to be very successful."

Tice is eager to see how the offense rebounds Sunday against a Rams defense that's led by end Chris Long, middle linebacker James Laurinaitis and cornerback Cortland Finnegan.

"We understand it's a long season," Tice said. "We understand there are a lot of games. We understand that hopefully most of the games are going to go our way and we know some of them are not."

"How we bounce back from that is a key to how good a football team we're going to be. How you bounce back from adversity is also a key to what kind of man you're going to be, so hopefully we have some men that are going to bounce back from that adversity and perform better."